Robur-le-conquerant. English

by Jules Verne

  Chapter XIV

  THE AERONEF AT FULL SPEED

  If ever Prudent and Evans despaired on escaping from the "Albatross"it was during the two days that followed. It may be that Roburconsidered it more difficult to keep a watch on his prisoners whilehe was crossing Europe, and he knew that they had made up their mindsto get away.

  But any attempt to have done so would have been simply committingsuicide. To jump from an express going sixty miles an hour is to riskyour life, but to jump from a machine going one hundred and twentymiles an hour would be to seek your death.

  And it was at this speed, the greatest that could be given to her,that the "Albatross" tore along. Her speed exceeded that of theswallow, which is one hundred and twelve miles an hour.

  At first the wind was in the northeast, and the "Albatross" had itfair, her general course being a westerly one. But the wind began todrop, and it soon became impossible for the colleagues to remain onthe deck without having their breath taken away by the rapidity ofthe flight. And on one occasion they would have been blown overboardif they had not been dashed up against the deck-house by the pressureof the wind.

  Luckily the steersman saw them through the windows of his cage, andby the electric bell gave the alarm to the men in the fore-cabin.Four of them came aft, creeping along the deck.

  Those who have been at sea, beating to windward in half a gale ofwind, will understand what the pressure was like. But here it was the"Albatross" that by her incomparable speed made her own wind.

  To allow Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans to get back to their cabin thespeed had to be reduced. Inside the deck-house the "Albatross" borewith her a perfectly breathable atmosphere. To stand such driving thestrength of the apparatus must have been prodigious. The propellersspun round so swiftly that they seemed immovable, and it was withirresistible power that they screwed themselves through the air.

  The last town that had been noticed was Astrakhan, situated at thenorth end of the Caspian Sea. The Star of the Desert--it must havebeen a poet who so called it--has now sunk from the first rank tothe fifth or sixth. A momentary glance was afforded at its old walls,with their useless battlements, the ancient towers in the center ofthe city, the mosques and modern churches, the cathedral with itsfive domes, gilded and dotted with stars as if it were a piece of thesky, as they rose from the bank of the Volga, which here, as it joinsthe sea, is over a mile in width.

  Thenceforward the flight of the "Albatross" became quite a racethrough the heights of the sky, as if she had been harnessed to oneof those fabulous hippogriffs which cleared a league at every sweepof the wing.

  At ten o'clock in the morning, of the 4th of July the aeronef,heading northwest, followed for a little the valley of the Volga. Thesteppes of the Don and the Ural stretched away on each side of theriver. Even if it had been possible to get a glimpse of these vastterritories there would have been no time to count the towns andvillages. In the evening the aeronef passed over Moscow withoutsaluting the flag on the Kremlin. In ten hours she had covered thetwelve hundred miles which separate Astrakhan from the ancientcapital of all the Russias.

  From Moscow to St. Petersburg the railway line measures about sevenhundred and fifty miles. This was but a half-day's journey, and the"Albatross," as punctual as the mail, reached St. Petersburg and thebanks of the Neva at two o'clock in the morning.

  Then came the Gulf of Finland, the Archipelago of Abo, the Baltic,Sweden in the latitude of Stockholm, and Norway in the latitude ofChristiania. Ten hours only for these twelve hundred miles! Verily itmight be thought that no human power would henceforth be able tocheck the speed of the "Albatross," and as if the resultant of herforce of projection and the attraction of the earth would maintainher in an unvarying trajectory round the globe.

  But she did stop nevertheless, and that was over the famous fall ofthe Rjukanfos in Norway. Gousta, whose summit dominates thiswonderful region of Tellermarken, stood in the west like a giganticbarrier apparently impassable. And when the "Albatross" resumed herjourney at full speed her head had been turned to the south.

  And during this extraordinary flight what was Frycollin doing? Heremained silent in a corner of his cabin, sleeping as well as hecould, except at meal times.

  Tapage then favored him with his company and amused himself at hisexpense. "Eh! eh! my boy!" said he. "So you are not crying any more?Perhaps it hurt you too much? That two hours hanging cured you of it?At our present rate, what a splendid air-bath you might have for yourrheumatics!"

  "It seems to me we shall soon go to pieces!"

  "Perhaps so; but we shall go so fast we shan't have time to fall!That is some comfort!"

  "Do you think so?"

  "I do."

  To tell the truth, and not to exaggerate like Tapage, it was onlyreasonable that owing to the excessive speed the work of thesuspensory screws should be somewhat lessened. The "Albatross" glidedon its bed of air like a Congreve rocket.

  "And shall we last long like that?" asked Frycollin.

  "Long? Oh, no, only as long as we live!"

  "Oh!" said the Negro, beginning his lamentations.

  "Take care, Fry, take care! For, as they say in my country, themaster may send you to the seesaw!" And Frycollin gulped down hissobs as he gulped down the meat which, in double doses, he washastily swallowing.

  Meanwhile Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans, who were not men to wastetime in wrangling when nothing could come of it, agreed upon doingsomething. It was evident that escape was not to be thought of. Butif it was impossible for them to again set foot on the terrestrialglobe, could they not make known to its inhabitants what had becomeof them since their disappearance, and tell them by whom they hadbeen carried off, and provoke--how was not very clear--someaudacious attempt on the part of their friends to rescue them fromRobur?

  Communicate? But how? Should they follow the example of sailors indistress and enclose in a bottle a document giving the place ofshipwreck and throw it into the sea? But here the sea was theatmosphere. The bottle would not swim. And if it did not fall onsomebody and crack his skull it might never be found.

  The colleagues were about to sacrifice one of the bottles on boardwhen an idea occurred to Uncle Prudent. He took snuff, as we know,and we may pardon this fault in an American, who might do worse. Andas a snuff-taker he possessed a snuff-box, which was now empty. Thisbox was made of aluminum. If it was thrown overboard any honestcitizen that found it would pick it up, and, being an honest citizen,he would take it to the police-office, and there they would open itand discover from the document what had become of the two victims ofRobur the Conqueror!

  And this is what was done. The note was short, but it told all, andit gave the address of the Weldon Institute, with a request that itmight be forwarded. Then Uncle Prudent folded up the note, shut it inthe box, bound the box round with a piece of worsted so as to keep itfrom opening it as it fell. And then all that had to be done was towait for a favorable opportunity.

  During this marvelous flight over Europe it was not an easy thing toleave the cabin and creep along the deck at the risk of beingsuddenly and secretly blown away, and it would not do for thesnuff-box to fall into the sea or a gulf or a lake or a watercourse,for it would then perhaps be lost. At the same time it was notimpossible that the colleagues might in this way get intocommunication with the habitable globe.

  It was then growing daylight, and it seemed as though it would bebetter to wait for the night and take advantage of a slackening speedor a halt to go out on deck and drop the precious snuff-box into sometown.

  When all these points had been thought over and settled, theprisoners, found they could not put their plan into execution--onthat day, at all events--for the "Albatross," after leaving Gousta,had kept her southerly course, which took her over the North Sea,much to the consternation of the thousands of coasting craft engagedin the English, Dutch, French, and Belgian trade. Unless thesnuff-box fell on the deck of one of these vessels there was everychance of its going to the bottom of the sea, and Uncl
e Prudent andPhil Evans were obliged to wait for a better opportunity. And, as weshall immediately see, an excellent chance was soon to be offeredthem.

  At ten o'clock that evening the "Albatross" reached the French coastnear Dunkirk. The night was rather dark. For a moment they could seethe lighthouse at Grisnez cross its electric beam with the lightsfrom Dover on the other side of the strait. Then the "Albatross" flewover the French territory at a mean height of three thousand feet.

  There was no diminution in her speed. She shot like a rocket over thetowns and villages so numerous in northern France. She was flyingstraight on to Paris, and after Dunkirk came Doullens, Amiens, Creil,Saint Denis. She never left the line; and about midnight she was overthe "city of light," which merits its name even when its inhabitantsare asleep or ought to be.

  By what strange whim was it that she was stopped over the city ofParis? We do not know; but down she came till she was within a fewhundred feet of the ground. Robur then came out of his cabin, and thecrew came on to the deck to breathe the ambient air.

  Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans took care not to miss such an excellentopportunity. They left their deck-house and walked off away from theothers so as to be ready at the propitious moment. It was importanttheir action should not be seen.

  The "Albatross," like a huge coleopter, glided gently over the mightycity. She took the line of the boulevards, then brilliantly lightedby the Edison lamps. Up to her there floated the rumble of thevehicles as they drove along the streets, and the roll of the trainson the numerous railways that converge into Paris. Then she glidedover the highest monuments as if she was going to knock the ball offthe Pantheon or the cross off the Invalides. She hovered over the twominarets of the Trocadero and the metal tower of the Champ de Mars,where the enormous reflector was inundating the whole capital withits electric rays.

  This aerial promenade, this nocturnal loitering, lasted for about anhour. It was a halt for breath before the voyage was resumed.

  And probably Robur wished to give the Parisians the sight of a meteorquite unforeseen by their astronomers. The lamps of the "Albatross"were turned on. Two brilliant sheaves of light shot down and movedalong over the squares, the gardens, the palaces, the sixty thousandhouses, and swept the space from one horizon to the other.

  Assuredly the "Albatross" was seen this time--and not only well seenbut heard, for Tom Turner brought out his trumpet and blew a rousingtarantaratara.

  At this moment Uncle Prudent leant over the rail, opened his hand,and let his snuff-box fall.

  Immediately the "Albatross" shot upwards, and past her, higher still,there mounted the noisy cheering of the crowd then thick on theboulevards--a hurrah of stupefaction to greet the imaginary meteor.

  The lamps of the aeronef were turned off, and the darkness and thesilence closed in around as the voyage was resumed at the rate of onehundred and twenty miles an hour.

  This was all that was to be seen of the French capital. At fouro'clock in the morning the "Albatross" had crossed the whole countryobliquely; and so as to lose no time in traversing the Alps or thePyrenees, she flew over the face of Provence to the cape of Antibes.At nine o'clock next morning the San Pietrini assembled on theterrace of St. Peter at Rome were astounded to see her pass over theeternal city. Two hours afterwards she crossed the Bay of Naples andhovered for an instant over the fuliginous wreaths of Vesuvius. Then,after cutting obliquely across the Mediterranean, in the early hoursof the afternoon she was signaled by the look-outs at La Goulette onthe Tunisian coast.

  After America, Asia! After Asia, Europe! More than eighteen thousandmiles had this wonderful machine accomplished in less thantwenty-three days!

  And now she was off over the known and unknown regions of Africa!

  It may be interesting to know what had happened to the famoussnuff-box after its fall?

  It had fallen in the Rue de Rivoli, opposite No. 200, when the streetwas deserted. In the morning it was picked up by an honest sweeper,who took it to the prefecture of police. There it was at firstsupposed to be an infernal machine. And it was untied, examined, andopened with care.

  Suddenly a sort of explosion took place. It was a terrific sneeze onthe part of the inspector.

  The document was then extracted from the snuff-box, and to thegeneral surprise, read as follows:

  "Messrs. Prudent and Evans, president and secretary of the WeldonInstitute, Philadelphia, have been carried off in the aeronefAlbatross belonging to Robur the engineer."

  "Please inform our friends and acquaintances."

  "P. and P. E."

  Thus was the strange phenomenon at last explained to the people ofthe two worlds. Thus was peace given to the scientists of thenumerous observatories on the surface of the terrestrial globe.